Unfinished business
by wengen
Summary: "Athena Stark. Lovely to meet you, too." the woman smiled, her dark brown eyes filled with happiness. "Now, where is my favourite consulting asshole?" - Join Sherlock Holmes and Athena Stark with their adventures in solving three important cases, and their biggest adventure yet - finding love. Sherlock/OC, set before the Reichenbach fall.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n:** I must admit that this is the first story I actually have thought through and made a proper plot for. I haven't written fanfics for a while now, so this is my attempt to get back in the game of writing romance(with a dash of adventure and detective work!). I really hope that you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

**P.S.** Please forgive me my writing mistakes, I'm not very good at writing in English.

**P.P.S.** Even though the description says that this story is about solving three cases, there _will_ be more, a bit less important cases.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Yet.**

* * *

"Sherlock?" John called from the kitchen, trying very hard to keep his voice calm, "why the _hell_ is there an eye on the table?"

Sherlock stepped in the kitchen and glanced at the oven for a moment, before giving John a curt answer, "Testing an hypothesis of mine." He went to the fridge, opened it and pinched the cheek of the head that sat there. It was the second one he'd managed to get from Barts, this time he was focusing on the teeth. "Oh, and don't open the corner cupboard, i put my tongue collection there, it needs to stay in the dark."

John let out a disgusted sigh, not even bothered to ask about what other human parts were hidden in the kitchen and went to the living room to find his phone, chinese food seemed like the only option for having normal dinner that didn't have human parts in it. Sherlock stayed behind, taking out the head and starting to examine the insides of his mouth.

John decided to watch the telly until the food arrived, but was interrupted by the sound of their doorbell.  
"I'll get it." he muttered, and got up from the armchair he'd already gotten comfortable in. He walked down the stairs and opened the front door, only to be greeted by the brisk autumn wind that was whistling outside.

John looked around, but didn't see anyone nearby, so he started to close the door. But before he managed to do it, he noticed a small package on the doorstep. It was tied up with a bright red ribbon and the label on it declared that the pack was meant for Sherlock Holmes. Wondering who might have put that behind their door, John picked it up and took it inside the flat.  
"Sherlock, there's a pack for you." He said, entering the kitchen and placing the delivery on the table. Sherlock lifted his eyes from the head, which was starting to look even worse than before, and took the package in his hands.

"Who do you think sent it?" John asked, standing behind Sherlock and looking at the pack with interest.

"A woman. In her late twenties, seems to be rather wealthy and owns a black cat. Wanted to impress me, not sure why." Sherlock said, inspecting every angle of the pack before opening it and revealing an old book with a small golden dragon on it's cover and a neatly folded note.

Sherlock took out the note first, unfolded it and read it through. Then he let out a heavy sigh, stood up, got his lighter from the other side of the table and burned the letter to ashes. After placing the lighter back he sat back in the chair he'd occupied earlier.

"What was all that about?" John asked, looking at Sherlock with raised eyebrows. But before Sherlock got to open his mouth, the doorbell rang.

"That must be your Chinese." he noted and turned back to the head, his mind racing, trying to figure out what to do next. The message had held some useful information, which would make the word 'bored' disappear for at least a year. He poked the eye of the head absent-mindedly, until John returned with his food.

"Are you going to tell me what the note said or is it better for me not to ask?" He asked, sitting down in his armchair.

"The latter." Sherlock said, grabbed the book and went to his bedroom.

* * *

Sherlock didn't come out of his bedroom until the morning and when he did, John was already awake, eating his breakfast in the living room. "Morning." John said, taking a sip from his coffee. Sherlock nodded as a response and went in the kitchen, the blue dressing gown flowing behind him.

Three minutes later he emerged from the kitchen, holding a cup of tea and a newspaper. He set the cuppa on the coffe table and sat himself on the sofa, flicking through the paper, very aware of John's gaze on him. "So, are you still not show-" John started, but was cut off, "No. The note was only meant for my eyes."

John carried on eating until another question crossed his mind. "OK, but there was a book. What was it about?"

Sherlock let out a heavy sigh and lowered the newspaper. "It was a children's book, John. Something about..." he paused, thinking about the funny creature the book had been about. "Hobbits. I read some pages of it and it was rather boring, set in some sort of fictional world. It features dragons, dwarves, elves and even more abnormal creatures. It was not interesting nor had it any clues to why it was sent to me." he said, talking even faster than normally, receiving John's attention with it. He was sure there was more behind that book.

"But you know who sent it to you." he said, raising an eyebrow. Sherlock raised the newspaper again, hiding his face. "Unfortunately yes, I do know who sent the note. In fact, she is supposed to arrive here in about ten minutes." he said, flicking through the paper, annoyed about the lack of murders.

"What? Is she a client?" John asked, taking the last bite and taking the dishes to the kitchen. "No. She is worse than a client." Sherlock replied, throwing the now useless newspaper under the coffee table.

"What is she then?" John came out of the kitchen, drying his hands in the kitchen towel.

"Early, apparently." Sherlock said, the sound of the doorbell finishing his sentence. He got up from the sofa and wanted to go downstairs, but stopped as soon as he remembered that he was still in his pajamas. He changed the route immediately and went to his bedroom, telling John to go invite her in.

John walked downstairs and saw mrs. Hudson already opening the door. A tall woman with raven black hair stood behind it, giving mrs. Hudson a wide smile. "Hello. Is Sherlock around?"

"Oh, yes, come in, Shelock is upstairs." mrs. Hudson said, stepping aside so the woman could walk in. As soon as she'd gotten in with her suit case, she noticed John standing on the staircase.

"Oh, hello!" She greeted and offered John her hand, which was accepted after a moment's hesitance. "John Watson? John nodded, "Yes, that's me, nice to meet you,-?" he paused, remembering that he didn't know her name.

"Athena. Athena Stark. Lovely to meet you, too." the woman smiled, her dark brown eyes filled with happiness. "Now, where is my favourite consulting asshole?"

* * *

John looked at Athena for a moment, not sure if he'd heard right. "Er, Sherlock is upstairs, i think he was expecting you." he said, still not sure whether or not the woman had just called Sherlock a 'consulting asshole'.

"Great! Ah, I had the worst trip ever today, the traffic really is horrible on Mondays." She said while walking up the stairs behind John, trying to diffuse the tension.

"So where did you come from?" he asked in response, looking at Athena over his shoulder. "Poland."

"She is lying, John. She came from Norwich." Sherlock shouted from his bedroom. "Your ears are as good as always, I see." Athena laughed and turned to John "Needed to check if he heard us." She whispered. "He tends to listen to other people's conversations and use the information against them. Not his best habit, I must admit, but at least he doesn't do blackmail."

"Yeah, I've noticed that." John agreed, "Um, would you like some tea?"

"Oh, yes please." Athena smiled, watching John disappear into the kitchen. She stood still in front of the fireplace until her phone buzzed. She digged the device out of the depths of her purse and saw that there was one new text.

"Come here right now. -SH"

She rolled her eyes, sent a friendly smile to John, who was currently waiting for the water to boil, and walked into Sherlock's bedroom. Sherlock was standing in front of the window, hands together behind his back.  
Athena sat in the chair that was set next to the bed, waiting for Sherlock to speak. There was silence for a long minute, and Athena closed her eyes, enjoying every second of it. It was comfortable silence, and neither of them wanted to break it. But there were some important matters to discuss.

"Why now?" Sherlock asked, not turning his eyes from the window.

Athena's eyes flicked open, "I need your help, Sherlock." She said and stood up. She walked up next to Sherlock. "I have three cases for you. One worse than the other." She examined Sherlock's face, trying to understand what he was thinking about. His face was blank and there was no way to tell what he was thinking about.

"Will you accept the cases?" Athena finally asked, hope in her voice.

Sherlock finally turned his eyes from the window, looking at her for the first time.

"Yes."

* * *

Reviews are the wind to my wings!


	2. Chapter 2

_A/n: First of all I'd like to apologize for the time i took to update, I had to rewrite this chapter two times before I was fully satisfied with it and personal life got in the way. __Thank you all so much for the follows, favourites and reviews, they are what keep me going!_

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately I do not own Sherlock.**

* * *

It was a cold Tuesday morning, and two days had passed since Athena had appeared behind the door of 221B. John was sitting in his armchair, deep in thought, when Sherlock walked in, in the middle of writing a text.

"Alright, you probably have some questions by now." he noted, not raising his eyes from the phone screen.

"Hm?" John asked, he hadn't even noticed Sherlock walking in.

"I said you must have some questions now, about Athena and the cases." Sherlock said, raising his eyes and looking down at John.

"Oh, yes, actually i do have a couple of questions." John admitted, "first of all, who is she?"

"She is a client, John, i thought it was obvious." Sherlock put the phone in his suit pocket and sat down in his own armchair.

"Yeah, I was hoping you'd go deeper on that. How do you know her?"

Sherlock sighed, "I've known her since university years, she was a good acquaintance of mine and she has a brain that in some ways is even better than mine. Not in everything, though." Sherlock defended himself, deeply regretting the last two sentences.

"All right, but why does she need our help?"

"She has been getting death threats, some _very _important files are missing and her sister has been kidnapped."

John nodded and took all the new information in, "and how come she was so cheerful when she first came here?" he asked after figuring that her happy behaviour didn't quite match the whole situation.

"She is an incredible actress, John, even I can not see through her mask of faked emotions. If she doesn't want you to know how she feels, you won't." Sherlock sighed, admitting his failure in trying to get rid of the mask.

"So how can you be sure she's not lying about the threats?" John asked, still unsure how to feel towards Athena.

"Because she proved it to me." Sherlock stood up, went to the small table that stood between the two windows and took a folder from a pile of paperwork that had been sitting there since their last case was solved.

"This file contains extremely delicate information on her life that has been used against her in threats and blackmail. John, she would definetely _not _come to me unless it was extremely serious."

John nodded and stood up, too. "What are we going to do, then?"

"First of all, we will find out who the threatener is, eliminate them and then we shall go on to the second case." Sherlock smiled, happy to have so much thinking material.

* * *

"No, no, no." Athena shouted into her phone, "I need you to get rid of the damp, I'm not offering you a free weekend at a camp." The old man on the phone was nearly deaf, which made communicating with him very difficult. Athena ran her free hand hand through her hair, frustrated. The man was apparently the only one in the office, and talking to him was driving her insane.

"The _damp_, sir!" She hissed, now completely pissed off. "Don't you honestly have anyone with better ear conditions there?"

Athena was walking down the street and already nearing Baker street, wrapped in her own thoughts, when someone aggressively shoved past her. The stranger continued walking on, only leaving an envelope on the ground. Athena growled a couple of rather colourful swear words at the impolite man and picked the envelope up. She already knew what the situation had been about. It was another threat delivery.

Athena didn't even bother to open the envelope, she simply sighed, tucked it into her messenger bag and stood up. She brushed the small amount of dirt off her clothes and carried on walking. She remembered the deaf man on the phone merely seconds later and after decided to hang up, it was pointless trying to explain the man exactly what she needed so she planned to call someone else later.

When she arrived to the small flat she was forced to call her home for at least a year, she dumped her bag on one of the many boxes sitting on the floor and collapsed on one herself.

The day had been very tiring for her and getting another threat wasn't making it better. Athena let out a heavy sigh and got the loathsome letter out of her purse. She ripped it open and took out an old photograph of her sister. She was still a teenager there, sitting in the armchair at their childhood home. The only thing wrong about the photo was her face. It had been crossed out with a red pen.

"Oh, God, no. This cannot be happening, it's way too soon." Athena muttered, a really hollow feeling filling her stomach as she turned the photograph over in her hand. There was a short handwritten message on the other side, and it was all she needed to run out of her basement flat and abruptly burst into the flat upstairs. She found Sherlock and John, reading the daily papers peacefully. Their heads jerked up as soon as she stepped in the flat, her face white as paper.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked, lowering the paper and looking at Athena with concern.

"My sister, Sherlock. They sent me a photo of her, and on the backside of it is a date." She explained, handing the photo to Sherlock, who took it from her shaking hands and quickly read it through.

"John, would you please put the kettle on. It seems we will have a rather long day today." Sherlock said. He motioned Athena to go and sit on the sofa while John went to the kitchen. Then he threw on his coat and went out of the door, announcing that he would be back soon. Athena nervously bit her lower lip, clutching the photo of her sister with trembling hands.

"Oh, and Athena?" Sherlock yelled from the staircase.

"Yeah?" She shouted in response, her voice a bit shaky. Her mask had completely fallen off by now and she wasn't even trying to rebuild it.

"Mycroft will be here soon, better prepare yourself." He shouted, his amused grin nearly audible.

* * *

It took an hour for Sherlock to return, and during that time Mycroft had popped in, asked a few questions from Athena about her intentions, and left with a frown after being called Microsoft (twice) and given some diet tips.

For the remaining time, John and Athena had a light chat, Athena sharing a few embarrasing stories of Sherlock and Mycroft and John talking about their cases with Sherlock. He was in the middle of explaining Athena the case of the Geek Interpreter when Sherlock returned, carrying a box with him.

He placed the box on the floor, took off his coat, threw it on the sofa, and knelt down next to the box. He opened it and revealed a pile of maps, books, folders, files and all other kinds of paperwork.

"I'm going to need your help with this Athena. Remember your training. I need you to focus on the current moment and put aside the feelings. We will save your sister, and for that we need to make good use of the little time we have." Sherlock instructed, already taking out the papers and sorting out the most important ones. He found a little box with pins and some thread and started attaching the papers to the wall above the sofa.

Athena rose from Sherlock's armchair she'd been occupying and joined Sherlock, sorting out the paperwork and occasionally taking out her phone to send a text.

They worked on the papers and books until late night. People from Sherlock's homeless network came by with information during the day and guys from Athena's small group of hackers sent e-mails containing passwords and codes to all the needed places. John did a _lot_ of internet research and printed out new information about the possible kidnappers.

It was one in the morning when John announced that he was too tired to google and went to bed. Two hours later Athena yawned and decided to call it a day. And since she was sleeping on the couch until her flat was getting fixed, Sherlock was forced to leave the wall and go work on his small experiments in the kitchen.

* * *

A/n: Reviews are what keep me writing!


	3. Chapter 3

I'm so sorry for not updating for a while, I hope you guys don't hate me for leaving the fic behind for so long! School was really difficult for me and I had absolutely no time to write. But I did manage to write this short chapter for you to enjoy! I didn't really check the second half of the story for typos and such, so I apologize for any mistakes.

**Unfortunately I don't own Sherlock.**

* * *

Mycroft had a day off the next day and as he had some things to discuss with Athena, he headed for the flat in Baker street. He calmly walked in the door, humming a cheerful tune and saw Athena sleeping on the sofa with a brown duvet on her.

"Good morning, Athena, time to wake up." He ordered, his voice loud enough to wake her up.

"Fug of M'crof" was Athena's slurry response, combined with turning her back to Mycroft and pulling the duvet tighter around herself. She really wasn't a morning person.

Mycrofts reply to that was quite unexpected. He stepped forward and simply pinched Athena's ear from a certain spot, making her yelp and sit up wide awake, rubbing her aching ear. She shot Mycroft looks that would have made anyone else nervous and beg for mercy, but Mycroft just sighed.

"Hurry up please, I haven't got all morning and I have some important things do discuss with you." He commanded and went out of the flat, leaving Athena to get dressed.

She was ready in fifteen minutes, but she didn't really hurry, and took her time walking down the stairs and putting her coat on. When she finally arrived outside, she saw Mycroft leaning against the usual black car he used to kidnap people with. When he noticed Athena stepping out to the chilly , he opened the back door of the car and motioned for Athena to get in. Usually the raven-haired assistant, who never left her phone and always made up a new name for herself, sat in the back, but this time her spot was unoccupied. Athena slid in and greeted the driver.

"Where are we even going?" she asked after three minutes of driving in awkward silence. At least it felt very awkward for her, she wasn't entirely sure about Mycroft.

"You'll find out soon enough."

* * *

"John!" Sherlock shouted, emerging from his bedroom, wearing his usual pyjamas and the blue robe.

"What?" Came a muffled response from upstairs, John had obviously just woken up and didn't seem to be in a good mood.

"Athena is missing, I think Mycroft was here this morning." Sherlock yelled, putting the kettle on and rummaging through the cabinets to find some biscuits.

"So what?" John's voice was nearer now as he came down from the stairs to the kitchen.

"Mycroft hates her, I don't want to know what he's doing with her right now." Sherlock explained, frowning. There were no biscuits.

"Why does he hate her? She seems nice to me." John asked, burrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

"Because she once sabotaged his plan to start a _diet_." Sherlock growled, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I have no bloody idea why, they both refuse to tell me." He continued, growing more and more annoyed because he really hated not knowing things. Especially when these things involved his brother.

"All right, calm down. Where do you think he took her?" John sat down and looked at Sherlock, expecting him to know. Which he did.

"Most likely the small cottage a bit out of town. He owns it but he rarely goes there. And when he does, he always has an awful reason to. I think something has happened to Irene." Sherlock explained, taking a sip from his tea.

"I'm sorry, _Irene_? As in Irene Adler?" John was even more confused now, what did Irene have to do with this?

"Yes, the Woman is Athena's sister. I'm surprised it took you so long. Didn't you notice how similar they are?"

"Well, now that I think about it..." John started, but didn't finish his sentence as he was too deep in thought to complete it.

"No time to think, John, we must go." Sherlock said, gulped down the rest of his tea and went to change his clothes. "We'll leave in eight minutes, go get dressed, John."

* * *

"Er, Mycroft?" Athena asked, trying to start a conversation.

"Yes?" Mycroft clearly didn't understand her attempt to chat.

"Why did you bring me here?" She had asked a similar question back in the car, but Mycroft hadn't answered. She hoped he would answer now. She was quite curious about the cottage Mycroft had brought her to.

"I have some news about your sister and I didn't want my brother to hear. We have about half an hour until he arrives here with Watson. We might have some spare time during which I want to talk about our little argument all those years ago."

"All right, start talking then." Athena made herself more comfortable in the sofa she had revealed from under a white sheet that had covered it before and looked at Mycroft expectantly.

Mycroft had set himself in an armchair and was now flipping through a file. They sat in silence for a while until Mycroft found what he was looking for.

"I must say, this is also news for me, I didn't dare to look before I had you with me. It is, after all, about _your_ sister." He said while reading the page. "Oh my, she really has done a lot of things."

"Just get to the point, Mike, or I will repeat the _argument_ you're so pissed at." Athena sighed, taking out her phone to check her texts. There was only one new text. She opened it.

**You have 36 minutes until we arrive. SH.**

It had arrived ten minutes ago which meant that they were probably on their way by now.

"Hurry up Mycroft, we have only twenty minutes left."

"Oh, dear, it appears your sister has been found and she is currently in an hospital in..." He paused for a moment, taking in Athena's face.

"Where is she?" Athena demanded, sitting up straight and looking at Mycroft with a serious face that revealed no other emotion.

"Sussex."

* * *

**Tell me what you think. Your reviews make my day!**

P.S. If you have an idea, no matter how small, about what I should write, let me know. I'm always open for new thoughts! xx


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